Carsie Mains

Air photography has recorded the cropmarks of a circle of fifteen close-set pits 450m NNE of Carsie Mains farmsteading. The circle measures about 10m in diameter and is adjacent to the pit-defined mortuary enclosure NO14SE 84. Information from RCAHMS (SH) 12 January 1993.

NO14SE 88 177 417

NO 177 417 A rectilinear structure visible as a cropmark (NO 14 SE 84) was exposed and partly excavated by a joint team from the universities of Stirling and Glasgow. It was superficially similar to a Neolithic timber structure excavated at Littleour, some 1.5km to the SSW. The structure measured c 17m roughly E-W by 7m wide. It was defined by two lines each of five posts, with the ends closed off by three further posts. In the interior were two lines of smaller posts, each some 1.5m in from the long sides. There was a further small post close to the long axis and, near the W end, a curved possible slot. Most other features excavated were tree-pits, of which many were recognised in the excavated area.

The other feature, the timber ring (NO 14 SE 88), consisted of 15 posts set in shallow post-holes in a circle 12.5m in diameter. One post at least seemed to have been burned in situ.

No artefacts, apart from flint flakes from a tree-hole, were recovered from either site. The tree-pits provide some stratigraphic relationships. Where they coincided, the post-holes of the rectilinear timber structure appeared to pre-date the tree-pits, while the post-holes of the timber ring clearly cut through the filled-in tree-pits.

Sponsor: Arts & Humanities Research Board.

G J Barclay and K Brophy 2002

Excavation has demonstrated that the feature interpreted previously as a pit circle is instead a ceremonial timber circle. As such, the pit circle classification has been replaced with timber circle.

Information from RCAHMS (KMM) 10 April 2014